Draft-wise, HL's lineup was better. They outranged and even outdamaged TM.
"Seems like they are experimenting. Stick to our plan, invade blue." Greg concluded.
The rest of the players felt that his words sounded reasonable and no longer felt puzzled.
Game started. Everyone except HL's Top Laner invaded the red team's jungle.
Top Laner dropped a ward around their blue and soon spotted the enemy Jungler in their jungle.
Greg had already anticipated this. He gave out a command, "Fish and Mike protect my blue."
Silence played El, a utility hero who was not a popular champ in this patch. In terms of damage, El couldn't be compared to Li especially early game. It was a wise choice to avoid a confrontation and try to trade the buff instead.
Weiyi's damage in the early game was disgusting and it only got worse as the game progressed.
Even if the opponent was Silence, Greg was confident that Black Knight together with Weiyi could kill him.
Black Knight dealt damage according to the enemy's max health. He was good into tanks and his early game was quite good in comparison to El who would only come online after competing her first item.
Not to mention, Knight was spotted in the Top Lane, therefore, the only support El could have was Sen who was incredibly weak early.
Taking these aspects into consideration, HL decided to fight Silence head-on.
Black Knight first tossed his Q and successfully pulled El closer to him. Weiyi followed suit with W intending to chunk off El's health.
However, almost instantly El pushed Black Knight against the wall stunning him in the process, and at the same time dodged Weiyi's spell.
In the next second, Weiyi was bound by a spell that was tossed from over the wall and Sen soon revealed himself.
El switched the target and started attacking Weiyi while Black Knight was still stunned.
It was true that El and Sen had lower damage compared to those two but their spells had lower cooldown. Black Knight was strong but he leveled up his Q first, therefore, he was not much better than El at present.
Meanwhile, Weiyi was a mage, his damage abilities were strong but so what? The moment he missed his W, it was a done deal for him.
Weiyi's health dropped rapidly but he was soon saved by Black Knight. Since Sen's location was hard to get over, Black Knight could only attack the tank.
Weiyi unhesitatingly flashed away to get out of Sen's attack range trying to be in a safer spot to fight.
El figured out his intention and shortly followed with his flash just as Weiyi was channeling his W. At this moment, El's spell came back, and was able to cancel Weiyi's ability by pushing him against the wall.
In the meantime, Sen rooted Black Knight and came over to collect Weiyi's head.
"First Blood!"
Witnessing this scene, Greg ordered, "Mike falls back!"
However, Mike refused, "No! I can take Silence down."
Since El has been tanking all the damage, it was likely possible to take her down but not if Knight also joined in the fight.
Mike completely forgot about Knight's existence which was why Greg urged him to leave a moment ago.
Due to this negligence, his head was given to Knight and their blue was transferred to Sen.
Mike immediately apologized, "My bad."
Greg didn't scold him and comforted, "That's fine. Silence's health is low so he can't steal the rest of the camps. He also flashed which was not bad."
Unsurprisingly, Silence indeed needed to recall back to base. Greg, on the other hand, managed to steal all his bot camps.
The start was not disastrous for HL so to speak.
Starfish and Black Knight were forced to use their teleport after spawn.
Since Sen participated in the fight, his farm was not that better than Weiyi who came back with a teleport.
Still, he gained exp from one kill, one assist, and the blue buff. Not to mention, he didn't lose any of his summoner spells which made Weiyi who was supposed to win in the lane struggle to play against him.
Starfish also belatedly found that playing against Sen was not as easy as he thought.
Weiyi's ability range was longer than Sen's. Unlike Light Sen who can only deal damage with his W, all of Weiyi's abilities deal burst damage. The downside was that Weiyi needed to stop moving to use his abilities and they all needed a bit longer casting time.
On the other hand, Sen's spell-casting time was incredibly low and he could use spells while moving around.
It didn't take long for Starfish to fall behind in farm and be shoved under the turret.
"Fish, I am coming."
Starfish didn't make it obvious that his Jungler was coming and slowly moved out of his turret.
Sen didn't suspect anything since he wanted to get a turret plate before he based.
Li came from behind which left Sen nowhere to go except walking into the Jungle.
Greg expected him to do so but what happened next bewildered him.
Sen calmly comboed Weiyi with his QW but of course, they were not enough to kill him. As a result, he walked into the turret range to AA him twice to finish the mage off.
But by doing so, he was shot by the turret twice which was akin to more than half of his health.
Both Starfish and Greg figured that Sen didn't want to give more gold to the enemy Jungler. He tried to get himself killed while taking one of them down with him.
Fortunately, Sen's Q didn't cancel Weiyi's W and got hit in return. This guaranteed a kill and wouldn't let Sen get executed.
Yet, just when they thought Sen would accept his death, he actually flashed with a silver of heath and disappeared into the enemy jungle!
Greg immediately gave a chase and his Top Laner also left his lane to come and help him.
Mind you, Seth had a bounty on his head after getting another kill, therefore, it was not a waste of time to come and collect this free kill.
One came from the Top Lane while another came from the river. Sen was trapped in this jungle and was destined to die.
Estimating the time, Greg predicted that Sen would be around the blue camp but unexpectedly he checked all the bushes and didn't even see a glimpse of his shadow!
In the meantime, Black Knight scurried around the wolf camp in case he was trying to sneak into their base to get executed but he too, was unable to find him!
Both Greg and Black Knight wasted a lot of time just to find Sen. Only then did the former realize something unbelievable.
"Mike checks the bush near the wolf!"
That bush was ignored because it was the first location that Sen landed after using his flash.
Who would expect that someone was daring enough to recall in that place without fleeing for his dear life????
As it turned out, Fu Yue dared to do it.
By the time, Black Knight checked the bush, Fu Yue finished his recall and vanished right in front of their eyes.
Greg's eye twitched fiercely not wanting to believe that he was being played like a fool by a rookie.
Is Omega nowadays so fierce?!
That's right, Greg was sure that TM's Mid Laner was the rumored 404 and not He Xing as his teammates speculated.
However, due to his mindset, he thought that 404 would play passively and didn't take him too seriously.
"Red Team has slain the Water Dragon!"
As it turned out while the two were chasing Fu Yue, Wei Chen took the opportunity to take down the dragon with their Bot Laners.
Greg soon realized that giving Sen the early lead was a grave mistake. Weiyi who was supposed to be their trump card and best poke fell behind so much that he couldn't do anything to Sen especially after he got his shadow form.
To make matters worse, it was time for the Young Saint to spawn and they were behind in all lanes except for the jungle!
Brandy spoke up with a frown, "We can't let them have this objective too."
Greg hesitated for a bit before making his decision, "Bot rotates to Young Saint. Prepare for a 5 vs. 5."
Milky and Brandy responded in unison, "Got it."
TM started the Young Saint and HL hovered in the river poking them from a safe distance.
"Sen is missing, be carefu-"
Just as he said this, Ilay suddenly flashed and knocked three people up. Lay immediately followed and frantically shot her AAs. She then recalled her needles and rooted them in return.
As for Weiyi, he was busy fleeing away from Sen who came out of nowhere and targeted him.
Sen dodged his Q with shadow W before finishing him with his EQ. In the meantime, Black Knight was zoned away by Knight who was 2 levels higher and couldn't do anything to help his team.
Greg managed to flash away but in the next second, he got rooted by Sen who switched to his Light form and got his head collected by Lay.
Not long after, Black Knight was hunted down resulting in Ace.
Just as HL was shrouded in gloom, the game suddenly made an announcement.
"Red team has captured the Young Saint!"
Greg almost coughed up blood.
They have always warned each other about how to guard against Silence but in the previous fight, Silence didn't even join the battle!
While his team was fighting, he was casually killing the Young Saint!
Starfish gnashed his teeth, "That Sen is waiting in our Jungle just to find my location! His shadow W is ridiculous! It dodges all of my pokes!"
Milky who hasn't been talking much felt like he was constipated, "Not only yours, my Ult is useless against him."
Sen's shadow W allowed him to become a pool of shadow which made him untargetable.
Both Weiyi's and YuLu's Ults had a long attack range. The former could summon meteorite 4 times to hit the selected locations while Yulu could snipe his target from afar 5 times.
These two were good for securing the kill and the fleeing enemy without revealing their locations. It was particularly so once they activated their Ults together.
But, it was another matter if they were to be found out before the fight and fought in close distance.
Especially for Weiyi who didn't have any CC abilities. He kept getting caught before the teamfight.
Yulu had limited resources and started to fall behind in gold causing the team to lack damage.
Li was good at engaging but El could prevent a dash onto her and her allies who remained within her barrier.
El might not be a popular Jungler but she was a good counter to Li. Greg regrettably realized that TM's draft worked well together.
El's Ult could send away the target (s) she hit with her fan, push the enemies away, and save her teammates from Li's Q.
Knight acted as their shield and kept locked down their ADC. Ilay could follow with his knock, charm, and dash. Lay would do her role and kept firing damage on the sideline.
Sen popped up to deal AOE damage and then ran away with his W. When he was in critical health, he switched to Light form and acted as a second support on the sideline by rooting and healing.
Unsurprisingly, the game ended around 24 minutes and HL was incredibly depressed.
HL's Coach never expected their team to win but this loss still dealt a huge blow to him.
They had specifically researched how to deal with Silence but from the beginning to the end, Silence was never the main protagonist!
Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he sternly said, "We can't give the Mid prio to TM."
Starfish tentatively asked, "Umm... Are we going to ban Sen?"
The Coach glared at him in return, "Say the person who lost to Sen miserably as Weiyi."
Starfish shrunk his neck and no longer spoke.
The rest of the team agreed with the Coach and they first banned Sen in the second game.
Li Haoran laughed, "Hahaha! They really banned Sen!"
Zhao Fu helplessly shook his head, "It can't be helped. Sen could dodge any skillshots with his W which was quite annoying to deal with."
Yang Yuxuan added in a good mood, "They would have never expected that it was Sen who was in charge of shot-calling."
Coach He was well aware of their weaknesses. The team depended too much on Silence so today's goal was to let Silence step down allowing other teammates to lead.
Since Fu Yue had the quality to be a commander, Coach He wanted to strengthen this aspect and let him take charge of today's matches.
From the Banning phase to the real-life strategy, Coach He didn't interfere with it at all.
It had to be said that he was satisfied with how it turned out so far.
In the second game, TM switched to the blue side and Silence was still playing a Toolman champ.
Down in the Bot Lane was Kaze and a meatshield with a lot of CCs.
As for the Top and Mid lane...
They were fighters, 1 vs 3 champs.
HL fell into a moment of silence.